The present invention relates to an automobile roof structure, more particularly, to a roof structure which is adapted for installing and demounting the roof panel as a whole.
Referring to FIGS. 1, 2, and 3, there is shown a roof structure of an automobile with a usual movable sun roof 2, in which a sun roof frame 8 is fixed to an opening end portion 6 of a roof panel 4. A weather strip 12 is attached to the inner periphery side wall 10 of the sun roof frame 8, and the rain water that accumulates in the gutter 14 around the sun roof frame 8 is removed to outside of the automobile via a drain hose 16.
However, in such a usual frame structure, there naturally exists a limit on the size of the sun roof 2 due to the arrangement wherein the sun roof frame 8 is situated in the rear of a front roof rail 18 or a side roof rail 19. This results in drawbacks such as a rather high manufacturing cost because of the complicated structure necessitated by the use of a sun roof frame 8 or a drain hose 16.